


Broken Knuckles

by necroMatador



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Child Neglect, Childhood, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, M/M, bullying mentioned but not shown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27786286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necroMatador/pseuds/necroMatador
Summary: "“They’re so…rough?  Weathered?  Your skin, features, even your hair is soft, except that scratchy scruff you call a beard.  Your hands, though, are covered in calluses and several of your knuckles are…knobbly.  Were they broken?  From what I’d heard, I didn’t think instrument-specialty bards ever put their hands at risk.”Sal sighed and put down the half-stringed dulcimer, leaning back against his chair and looking up at the eladrin."
Relationships: Original Elf Character(s)/Original Orc Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	Broken Knuckles

“What happened to them?” Daymeon asked suddenly from his seat in the tavern as he watched Sal re-string and tune his collection of stringed instruments.

“Hm?” Sal responded, half-listening and half-focused on making sure the dang banjo dulcimer hit the correct open chord.

“Your hands,” Daymeon continued, in a voice that Sal had learned meant that he was trying to word things in his head before he spoke to avoid them coming across meaner than he meant them (it was a good skill, but he didn’t always use it and it didn’t always work when he did, so Sal braced himself anyway).

“What d’you mean?”

“They’re so…rough? Weathered? Your skin, features, even your hair is soft, except that scratchy scruff you call a beard. Your hands, though, are covered in calluses and several of your knuckles are…knobbly. Were they broken? From what I’d heard, I didn’t think instrument-specialty bards ever put their hands at risk.”

Sal sighed and put down the half-stringed dulcimer, leaning back against his chair and looking up at the eladrin.

* * *

He was 11 and his nose was broken _again_ and it hurt to breathe but his dad was yelling so he had to at least pretend to pay attention or he’d get in more trouble.

“Salakesh…” his father finally sighed, frustration and disappointment not even disguised anymore. “This is the fourth time in the last year you’ve come home with a broken nose and it must be the twentieth or thirtieth that you’ve had a black eye or bruised knuckles or a split lip.” He paused as if waiting for some response from the boy standing tense in front of him. Sal remained silent, he knew better than to talk back at this point, so his father continued. 

“We’ve tried talking with you about this.” He had gotten a lecture on the damage he was doing to the family name and reputation; the reputation that his younger brother (newly turned 6 and watching with a look of worried curiosity from a seat beside his mother across from where Sal stood) would inherit.

“We’ve tried grounding you.” Since he mostly stayed in his room, reading and writing, this had hardly been an effective change.

"We let you try music lessons and you were doing so well those first few weeks afterwards.” He had been doing amazingly when they finally let him take music lessons that he’d been begging them for for years. Until the son of Duke Caicaryn had stolen his lute and smashed it.

"We’ve given you _chores_!” He had been basically raised by the house staff since he was 5 years old, so Sal was no stranger to chores and helping around the house. He got the lists he was given done in no time and was back doing whatever he wanted (usually back to his room to read and write) within a morning.

“What is not getting through to you? Why do you keep picking fights?” He stayed quiet, eyes trained on the floor. He had explained before that he wasn’t the one picking fights, even if he sure as heck was the one finishing them.

“I don’t…I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Salakesh.” He sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. Sal’s nose twinged slightly, reminding him that it was still there, still broken.

“We’ve signed you up for private combat lessons,” his father spoke again after a small pause. “If you want to fight so badly, you’re going to learn to use a sword and do so properly as befits our house. Now go see the nurse." Sal opened his mouth to protest, he didn’t really want to learn to fight, but the look on his father’s face said it all. The conversation was over.

And so it began.

Later that week and his hands were a mess of cloth and gauze and hidden in the poofy sleeves of his shirt as he walked slowly to his music lessons. His mind raced as he tried to come up with an excuse as to why he couldn’t do anything in class. At least three of his fingers were bruised and swollen to the point where they couldn’t move. Holding a violin and bow or plucking at a lute would be impossible. How was he going to explain this? He couldn’t just skip class either, the instructor, Mrs. Reiner, was a family servant so she lived at the manor and knew where he spent his time.

He walked hesitantly into the room that had been set aside as a music room. Mrs. Reiner looked up from her place at the piano and smiled.

"I was beginning to wonder if you’d gotten lost!” She chuckled, her smile as bright as the sun. She was one of Sal’s favorites of the house staff, always so kind and happy. But her smile dropped as she took a proper look at her student.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Sal flinched a little and reflexively tugged on the end of one sleeve. Ow, that finger was broken. Shit. Mrs. Reiner looked down and saw his hands, clumsily wrapped in what bandages he could scrounge without letting his parents find out. In an instant she was at his side, carefully lifting his hands to inspect the damage. Sal began to tear up.

“Mom and dad put me in sword lessons because I get in so many fights,” he sniffled, trying his hardest not to actually cry as Mrs. Reiner slowly unwrapped the mess of gauze. “I don’t even know how to hold the sword and it’s really big and heavy and Swordmaster Perridan isn’t actually teaching me how to use it he just has me try to hit him and then because he’s better he cracks me on the hands and they’re not sharp but they’re metal and-” he trailed off into a small hiccupping sniffle.

Mrs. Reiner looked at his hands and then up into his face with a look of helpless frustration he’d never seen on her face before.

“Oh Sal…” it shifted to an apologetic look of sorrow that a lot of the servants gave him when they thought he didn’t see. “Have you told your parents about this, dear?” His eyes widened and he shook his head an emphatic no.

“I can’t! They would just think it’s because I can’t do anything right.”

“Oh, honey…” Mrs. Reiner said sadly. “I’ll discuss this with your parents. I’ll avoid bringing this part up, just that I am aware of Perridan’s…reputation of being more injurious than instructional and perhaps it would be wise to seek a different teacher for you. But as for class today…I’ll let you out early if you can promise me three small things.” Sal took a shaky breath in, still on the verge of tears, and nodded.

"Sure.” Mrs. Reiner smiled again, and suddenly his hands didn’t hurt anymore. She lifted his hands in hers up so he could see that they were glowing. Magic!

“First, I need you to keep this little power a secret, just between you and me.” She swung her hands back and forth as the glow receded. Sal nodded, entranced. “Second, if you ever get hurt like this again, come straight to me as soon as you can. You let these injuries sit for a few days if I’m right, and while I’ve healed them pretty much completely, you’ll always have a couple of knots in your knuckles because of this.” Sal nodded again, and looked down at his newly healed hands, spreading his fingers out. He could see the three knuckles that had hurt the most still looked slightly swollen, but the bruises and blood was gone and they no longer hurt at all to move.

“What’s the third promise?” he asked, looking back up at Mrs. Reiner. She gave him a mischievous smile and ruffled his already unruly hair.

“Promise me that if I can’t get you a different instructor, that you’ll learn as much as you can and you’ll kick ‘Swordmaster’ Perridan’s butt.” Sal laughed.

* * *

“She didn’t manage to get me a new instructor, and I got a lot more broken knuckles, but I did eventually kick Perridan’s ass and Mrs. Reiner taught me almost everything I know about bardic magic so…I mean hey.” Sal shrugged, spreading his hands out on the table in front of the two of them.

“That…” Daymeon finally spoke up after a few moments of silent examination of Sal’s hands. “That is not great.”

“No. It isn’t. But it’s what happened and I can’t exactly change it now, can I?” Sal shrugged and went back to stringing and tuning musical instruments. Daymeon leaned slightly over, resting gently against Sal’s side.


End file.
